


Impossible n'est pas Français — Impossible isn't French

by emma_and_orlando



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Murder, Blood and Injury, F/F, Genderbending, Hitchhiking, Hurt!Regina, Hurt/Comfort, Nurse!Dominique, Possible Character Death, fem!queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emma_and_orlando/pseuds/emma_and_orlando
Summary: Dominique finds a terribly injured girl on the side of the road. She will do anything within her power to keep Regina alive.
Relationships: Dominique Beyrand/Roger Taylor
Comments: 24
Kudos: 21
Collections: The Clog Factory Halloween Exchange 🎃





	Impossible n'est pas Français — Impossible isn't French

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phoenix_Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_Queen/gifts).



> This is for the sweetest lovliest kindest most supportive Lisa, a lovely friend who deserves the best halloween. Sorry for the angst haahahah ❤️

## Les Grands Goulets; The Forbidden Road of the French Alpes  
October 31, 1973  
06:57 p.m.  


Traitorous and cursed is what Dominique's mother used to call Les Grands Goulets.

The wheels beneath her car screeches through swerves and blind curves of the mountain road. When local residents had built the path a hundred years ago, they wouldn't have anticipated the speed in which modern cars travel. 

The little space between the mountain and cliff narrows the road significantly as it climbs up into the valley in a fairytale-like landscape of moss, moonlight and decaying rocks.

In the swallowing darkness, Dominique cannot admire the extent of the mountain pass beauty before the rocks close in and the road takes her under the cliff. 

What makes this path so dangerous is the endless rocked tunnels still rough by nature, many accidents have occurred due to the kilometres of unlit highway, one that stands on the edge of a steep rock face with no guardrails that goes down further than the naked eye could see. 

It is one of the famous balcony roads that web out through France. Despite its fame, it will only be a matter of time before the government will shut it down.

Until then, Dominique uses it whenever she visits her family cabin in La Meije, deep into the mountain border. 

Without any radio signal here, her only company during her drive is the clattering waterfall that completes the valleys mystical image and the unnatural humming of her motor that keeps her awake.

Her mother had begged of her not to use this road during nighttime and Dominique had promised she wouldn't. 

But after sleeping through her afternoon alarm, Dominique had left the cabin four hours later than anticipated after all her friends who lived down south, had already left. Dominique doesn't like disobeying her mother, but has a shift at the hospital on Monday. She wants to be in Lyon before the end of Saturday if she can help it.

 _Still_ , Dominique's chest fills with tremendous relief when she has passed through the worst of the mountain pass and the beams of moonlight casts over her car again upon exiting the tunnel.

## Pré Baron; The Narrow Road to Lyon  
October 31, 1973  
08:14 p.m.  


From here on out the roads are more modernized and easier to navigate.

It is still surrounded by a thick forest of dense trees and rivers and creeks, Dominique relaxes back into the car seat. She hadn't realized she was gripping the steering wheel tight until her fists unclench afterwards. 

Her nerves will even out when she is riding further down the mountain pass getting closer to the city of Lyon.

This far up in the hill union, the city lights are still too far in the distance to spot.

Dominique's headlights are the only source of light down the road where the French government had not bothered to put up highway lightening. With the road rarely being used during daytime the government had not bothered to spent money on it.

The passage is used most often by travellers like Dominique, who drive from the middle of the country to the south-east of France to enjoy a winter vacation in the mountains. 

This late into the night it is unusual for anyone to use these tricky unfamiliar roads. 

Which is why Dominique jumps at the hunched figure that suddenly comes into the light of her car. 

She is driving too fast to see what it was. 

Worried it is a deer or other animal that could pounce onto the road, Dominique hits the brakes to bring the car to a shrieking stop in the middle of the empty highway, leaving angry black tracks under her wheels. 

Dominique breathes harshly through her nose when the vehicle comes to a halt. 

She uses the hand brake to make sure the car won't roll down the hillside while Dominique waits for the deer to cross the road in peace. 

Even with her perfect eyesight, she has trouble seeing the dark rural highway. 

It only becomes more clear when the figure she had seen before comes staggering from the bushes in the verge onto the open road. 

It is a young pale-skinned woman with her clothes ripped off her blood covered body. 

_Hitchhiker_. 

All colour drains from Dominique's face and the heat rushes out of the car in an immediate cold spell. 

The girl with the fabric of her shirt barely hanging onto her shoulder has one odd angled arm cradled to her chest, which is heaving up and down fast in panic. She comes closer to the car, sobbing for help.

Dominique starts to shake violently when the woman slams her flat palm against the glass on the drivers door. She bends down and looks at Dominique with striking blue tear-filled eyes. 

"H-he tried to kill me." Her whole body trembles when she speaks, which takes an enormous effort. "He tried to kill me."

Upon a closer look, her left eye is swollen and her body is bruised up. The worst bruise of them all is the painful and contrasting blue marks of two large hands wrapped around her delicate throat. 

Besides being close to nudity, with how badly her clothes are ripped, she is drenched in water, while Dominique is certain it has not been raining. 

"Please,” The girl continues. “He's still out there."

Dominique's hands move faster than her brain. 

Instant survival instincts make her reach across the car to the passenger door to unlock it. The girl catches on and immediately starts struggling her way around the car to get to the other side. Every step seems to cause her agonizing pain. Her face scrunches up and more tears escape the corners of her eyes to gather in the dip between her collar bones.

Dominique waits long enough for her to step inside the car before she takes the brakes off the car, barely waiting for the girl to shut the door at all, before she hits the gas paddle and starts driving away from this cursed spot as fast as she can. 

Every single nerve in Dominique’s body is itching in alarm.

The girl beside her is breathing heavily, struggling to stay calm while she hitching and crying. 

"He tried to kill me. He was there— he left me to die."

Such raw panic is something Dominique has gotten accustomed to as a nurse, but even then it is a gut-wrenching sound to hear someone speak from a place of such primal fear, even to her experienced ears. 

When they are driving straight ahead, downhill, far above the speed limit, Dominique spares a series of quick glances at the girl. Only taking her eyes off the road two seconds at the time. She wants to be as far away from this place as possible. 

It only takes a single look at the girl to know she needs immediate help. 

There are gashes visible where her clothes had been ripped off her frame too. She is bleeding profoundly, fresh blood is gushing from the open wounds. 

They are two and a half hours away still from Lyon. 

Dominique gives her another long worried look. She is a beautiful woman, underneath the blood and bruises. But she is shaking, teeth clattering and skin a sickly pale-blue from the cold water she is drenched in. A wave of nausea overcomes Dominique then, realizing that if this girl does not get help immediately, she won't make it. 

"The nearest hospital is almost three hours from here." Dominique comments wryly. 

Her throat clenches around the words as she says them, realizing suddenly that it is the first thing she has said at all.

The girl's eyes widen and with her one hand still cradled to her chest, she shakes her head wildly. "No, no, please. No hospitals."

"You need help now." Dominique bites her bottom lip, thinking long and hard. "Put pressure on the worst wounds, put your hand there and keep it there. You're bleeding out."

Dominique makes her press her hands where blood is seeping through her clothes, then Dominique pushes the car seat back for as far as it can go, getting the girl as horizontal as she can get inside the small car. 

"I'm okay, I'm fine. Please don't send me anywhere. I just need to lay down."

Her voice is high and rapid with desperation. Her lungs are rattling with the effort. She sounds scared, most of all, not surprising, considering that she is a fresh victim of a vicious attack. 

"I'm a nurse. I know when someone is in a critical condition. You are. You need help now—fuck." She grips the wheel tight. Not sure what to do. 

Until she does.

It takes only one other look at the girl to determine her survival time is limited. 

Dominique reluctantly slows down the car, much to the girls horror, but Dominique continues to lower the pressure on the gas, just enough for her to turn the car around and drive back uphills towards the mountain pass. 

"No." The girl is still shaking her head, more desperately now. She curls her knees to her chest and begins to sob again. Every cry makes her bruised throat rasp. "No, no don't bring me back. He's out there. He left me for death."

Dominique drives up into the mountain far faster than she has ever pushed her car to perform. She doesn't care, thinking vividly about the medical supplies she has stored in the cabin back in La Meije. 

"I have a home in the mountains, it is closer than Lyon."

She blindly reaches behind herself for the blanket she keeps in the back of her car. Once she finds it, she hands it over to the trembling girl. 

"I have a medical kit there. And there won't be anyone but ourselves." Dominique promises. She looks to her right to make sure the girl wraps herself in the blanket. She manages with some difficulty, her left arm is at an odd angle and her blood coated fingers struggle to move with how numb they are. Dominique amps up the heater. "It is an hour out, less if we drive faster than this."

They pass the place where Dominique had picked the girl up. 

She has her eyes on the verge and the bush. She looks ahead of herself and in the rearview mirror, checking at every opportunity if there are no other cars in the area that could potentially be the attacker. 

With her headlights being the only source of light around, her heart is positively racing. 

Anyone here would be the girls suspected murderer. 

The idea that a killer is out on the loose in such a dangerous part of the rural south, sets Dominique in the most uncomfortable mood. If someone is tossed down one of the cliffs or waterfalls, their bodies will likely never be recovered. 

They pass the place where she had found the girl without spotting anyone.

## Les Grands Goulets; The Forbidden Road of the French Alpes  
October 31, 1973  
08:49 p.m.  


When Dominique is not concentrating on the highway or the girls clattering teeth, her eyes drift over on the bloody handprint still left om the glass right next to her face. 

"Did you know him?" Dominique asks in a low tone when they are entering into the more dangerous parts of the mountains, where her mother always warns her to be careful. More than careful. "The person who did this to you."

"No, he was a stranger."

The girls head has lulled back against the window, eyes only half-masted. She is too disturbed to sleep, it seems, but the bloodloss could cause her to slip away at any moment. Dominique reminds her to keep pressure on her open wounds when she sees the girls hands slacken. 

"I was hitchhiking. I-I was fighting with my friends during our vacation. I tried to get a ride back to Lyon."

"Oh mon Dieu..." Dominique sighs. 

It is what they all warn their generation about, stepping into the car of a stranger and meeting dangers beyond your imagination. These highway killers were not uncommon, nasty familiar cases to this girls have been heard of since the late 60s in this part of France and well into the 70s they have continued. Since the first vicious murders, girls have been warned ti be more careful in this area in particular, but that does not stop a murderer when he sees an opportunity. 

Dominique feels for the girl and her the regret she must surely be feeling. Her chest aches looking at her now, bruised and wounded, such a beautiful fair face. 

The girl wipes carefully at her tender face with the tip of her thumb, brushing her tears to the side before they can irritate the swelling cut on her upper lip. "He drove me out here where there was nobody around to see us and dragged me out of his car by my hair. He dragged me into the bushes and beat me up there, in the mud on the ground."

Her voice breaks, Dominique can't tell if it is because of her injured throat or because of the emotions, either way, she sends her a reassuring smile. 

"You are safe now, you survived, okay? You don't have to tell me what happened, I will get you home safe and get your wounds dressed. You will be okay now."

Much to Dominique's dismay the girls' lips have turned into a sickly purple, but at least they curl into a tight, grimacing smile at the promise.

"He beat me until I couldn't move. I fought back, of course, but he broke my arm and he cut me, he kept stabbing me until I couldn't scream no more." She sniffles and wraps the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "It did not matter, nobody could hear it."

Dominique knows it implies more. Her jaw is set in a tight line. 

"When he was done and saw I was still alive, he put his hands around my neck and squeezed as hard as he could. He kept looking me in the eye while he did. It was humiliating."

"Nothing about this is humiliating." Dominque's voice comes out tight and clipped. Emotions run up high, and suddenly it feels like she is gurgling on barbwire. "You fought for your life when this man had conspired to kill you. There is no shame. You should feel absolutely no shame."

The girl is silent then, stunned if Dominique had to guess. 

It is not uncommon for victims of such trauma to go through various stages of viewing what had happened to them. 

Dominique should focus more on the road, with how tricky the swirling roads down of Les Grands Goulets are. But something about the trembling woman in the car seat beside her, makes it very difficult to keep her eyes off of her. 

"Did he leave you there, after that?" Dominique prompts quietly when the only sound in the car had become the girls rigid breathing. 

She manages to nod jerkily, her chin tilted downwards when she looks at Dominique through her clumped eyelashes. 

"He dragged me to the river, when I wasn't conscious."

"Did you wake up there?" Another nod. "Have you got any idea how long you have been there?" A headshake. "He likely drove away. Hitchhike murderers don't like to linger around."

"I woke up close to the river bank. I am unsure if I had floated away, how far I had gone."

"Did you get his name? See his face?" Dominique asks. She has to ask. "Do you know what type of car he had?"

"He called himself Laurant and he drove a Peugeot 404, it was green I think. Maybe blue. I don't remember very well." The girl holds the blanket tight between her yellowing fingers and shakes her head faintly. "His face I will never forget, but I cannot describe it. He looks like every other man, no facial hair, light hair past his shoulders and darker eyes. I don't know. Not tall, but not too short. He was strong, that I remember. He pushed me around like I weigh nothing."

Dominque stores all the information carefully, in case the girl suffers from some head trauma, or worse, if she does not make it.

Someone will need to inform the police of this man. While hitchhiking is already largely discouraged by the French government, people tend to be more careful in particularly known hotspots. The last attack here was half a decade ago. 

Dominique knows better than to blame the girl for the vicious attack. This and the previous decade have been a time of increased homicides and confirmed serial killers, even in the quiet French countryside. 

People have grown more cautious when the media coverage on these tragedies grew, but incidents still occur. 

"Are you still awake?"

The girl blinks her eyes open again. Dominique notes, grimly, that not only her blanket is now soaked in blood, but it is seeping into the car seat. 

She struggles with maintaining consciousness and her dazed look prospects nothing good. 

"Yes." The girls' voice is barely a rasp now, one that gurgles sickly. "I'm trying to stay 'wake."

"What is your name?" 

Dominique juggles driving the car into the dark, engulfing mountain pass. The walls close in on them as they enter the valley, the endless tunnel of all-consuming darkness. 

Not even the full moon can cast light over her car here. All she has is her headlights and the white line between the lanes that reflects back light that Dominique utilises to stay away from the rocky tunnel wall and keep driving on the trusting line to lead her through the swirls and curves of the tunnel. 

"I'm Regina." The girl breathes with difficulty. Her eyes shut momentarily and struggle to reopen. "Regina Meddows Taylor is my whole name. In case my family needs to know." There is no acceptance in her voice, only a bitter denial. The words are poisonous on her tongue, if the face she pulls is anything to go by. She is not ready to die. Her whole demeanour reads _it's not fair_. "What is yours?"

"Dominique." She replies in a soft tone, urging Regina to talk quietly too, to spare her already withering voice. "Your French is good, but you have an accent."

From the corner of her eyes, she sees Regina quirk a half-decent smile. 

"I was born in England, but moved here as a teen with my mother. Now I study in London again, but I went on a trip with my friends."

"Where were you staying?"

"Annecy." Regina answers, now her voice barely makes it above a whisper. Dominique wishes she could offer her some water, but she had forgotten to pack it. "It is beautiful there this time of year."

"I went once as a child, my grandfather was born there." Dominique spares her a smile. 

It is not easy to speed her way through the traitorous tunnel and keep a conversation going with the girl beside her. From experience as a nurse, she knows that being able to hold a conversation can pull a person along for that little much longer, which could safe their life.

So she juggles, dangerously, between Regina and the road. 

"Your friends, must be worried sick."

"Deadly." Regina snorts— but it turns into a choking cough, one that causes her to wheeze and grasp at her chest. "Fuck. Oh fuck."

"Be careful, take easy deep breaths. Okay?"

Regina squeezes her eyes shut and leans her head back to rest her cheek against the cool car window. Her entire face is pale and she has yet to stop shivering. Dominique remembers how she was left in the river, body discarded after a brutal, inhumane attack, left for the elements to decay her into nothing, until she became another unrecognizable, unidentifiable corpse left by the side of the road, like so many other unlucky girls of the 1970s. 

"I don't want to die."

Admittedly, tears spring into Dominique's eyes at how small the girl sounds, not defeated, but angry, outraged that she was cheated out of life. 

"Dominique, I'm not ready to die. I don't want to die."

"You won't. Hey, Reg, I got you, okay?" Dominique opens her palm and displays it between them, presenting it to Regina for something solid and warm to hold onto until they have made it to Dominique's cabin. She has to keep her eyes fixed on the road, but the determination in her voice does not waver. "You will be okay, I know it hurts now, but we will patch you up. We are already so much closer. Believe me, you have held up for so long already. It is just a little more."

Hesitantly, a hand colder than ice and sticky with blood interlaces with Dominique's hand. 

Regina is breathing shakily, her lungs make an unsettling rattle with every intake of air. She is trying to breathe more slowly now, at least. If she calms down her blood won't be pumping so fast, which would buy them more time. 

"And you are in luck," Dominique quirks up her eyebrow when Regina's gaze has lifted towards her. "I'm blood type O."

"You can give blood to everyone." Regina rationalizes, some light returns to her fainting eyes. "Good."

She sounds a little further away now and Dominique pushes the gas paddle a little harder, willing the car to drive across the rocky mountain pass faster than anyone has ever managed safely. 

Like the way down, in the dark, it is a dangerous and unpredictable road with many causes for accidents.

## La Meije; On The Border of Hautes-Alpes and Isère  
October 31, 1973  
10:08 p.m.  


Dominique is tense, rigid as a plank all the way up into the mountains, where she can already see the snow of the early winter decking the mountain top, where the lights of the small village at the end of the passage come as a blessing promise of safety. 

"Reg?"

Dominique squeezes her hand when Reginas goes lax. The girl startles awake, somewhat shocked, groaning in pain and her eyes clenching shut to grind through the worst of it. 

"Are we there?"

"Almost, we are almost there." Dominique assures in a hushed tone as she drives them uphill, towards the calling lights of the village. "Hold on, almost there."

"Everything is numb. I can't move my mouth."

Regina pokes her tongue out to moisture her broken lips. She is rasping, still, wheezing worse. Her entire chest deflates with every breath. 

"I can't move anymore."

"It's just the blood loss." Dominique consoles in what she hopes is a convincing voice. It could be the hypothermia, exhaustion, her mind slipping away or an undiscovered brain injury, a stab wound could have hit a fatal organ. "You will be fine, I will patch you up, give you some blood."

"Please."

Her voice is slurred with sleep once again. 

Dominique speeds her car into town, where she is forced to slow down to bane her way through the pebbled narrow streets. She has to release Regina's hand to control the car movement more precisely. 

This time of night the town is quiet and dark, aside from several lights being on in a scattered number of houses. 

The humming of her motor echoes against the walls and pavement, amplifying their hurry back to them in a louder growl that follows them all the way to Dominique's cabin further up to the mountain peak where a light layer of snow covers the ground. Every other minute she checks if they are not being followed, in case the murderer had still secretly been around when their paths crossed. 

Relief comes over Dominique like an all-consuming ocean wave when the house comes into sight.

"Nearly there— we're here. Thank God." She exhales through her teeth. 

With ease, she rolls the car into the driveway and makes no attempt to park it in any decent manner, before shutting the engine off in one fast practised motion. 

With her keys clutched in her hands, she turns to Regina to shake her awake again. 

Terror sets in her chest when the girls skin is whiter than the glistening moon outside. She has lost too much blood, and despite her chilled skin, she is no longer shivering. 

"Regina?" Dominique keeps the panic out of her voice. She reaches out to pull the blood-soaked blanket away from Regina's loosened clutch. She throws the ruined blanket into the back of the car and ignores the blood that sticks to her palm when she shakes her shoulder, lightly and careful, for invisible injuries there. "We are here, darling. Wake up for me."

With her face slack with sleep and pale as a ghost, Regina does not wake up.

Dominique scrambles out of the driver's seat, promptly ignores the bloody handmark Regina had left on the glass and runs around the car to the passenger's door. 

Her legs feel like they are made of lead and her fingers are cold and uncooperative when she forces the door open. 

Regina's unconscious body had been leaning against it, once the door is opened she comes rolling out, on her way to crumble to the floor if it were not for Dominique catching her on the way down. 

Most of Regina's skin is exposed and freezing when it comes in contact with Dominique. At least most of the river's water had dried up, leaving only her hair and clothes damp. 

With no time to waste Dominique rearranges Regina's body to fit into Dominique's arms. 

To carry someone roughly your height and weight in a bridal position is not recommended for the long term, but with the severity of Regina's injuries, Dominique carries her up the porch with the utmost care not to slip on the icy wood, then brings her to the front door like that, cradled in her arms. 

She runs towards the house, Regina, still unconscious in her arms. 

Before she unlocks the door, she casts a glance over her shoulder and checks the area around her. Her ears are also sharpened, listening for any abnormalities. 

But not a breaking stick or howling gust of wind is out of place.

Regina grows heavy in her arms with each agonizing second. Dominique one-handedly struggles the keys into the lock, her hands are shaking despite herself. She is filled with dread, holding a dying girl in her arms.

"We're going in, we're here. Look."

Dominique breathes out in relief when the key turns in the frostbitten lock and the door swings open. 

She pushes herself and Regina into the house, carries her over the threshold. Dominique finds the light switch with her elbow and hip-checks the door shut. 

Some of the warmth has remained in the cabin since Dominique had left a few hours earlier. 

She carries Regina into the living room and hurries to lay her down on the couch without jostling her and worsening her wounds. She has yet to gain consciousness. Dominique puts her down, arranges her bare feet onto the couch, before she kneels down to check Regina's pulse. 

Dominique has to close her eyes to concentrate on finding the beating of her heart, a faint but present movement under the ice-cold surface of her skin.

Had it been only for the outer shell of her body, Dominique would have declared her dead. 

Regina's lips are agape, in an attempt to breathe where her nose falls short on providing her enough air. The marks around her neck are more purple now, whereas the rest of her has gone the palest shade of white. The blood that is gushing from her open wounds makes for a nauseating contrast to the rest of her.

If she were dead, she would not be in peace, Dominique thinks wryly at the subtle crease between Reginas brows and the shallow, struggling rise and fall of her chest. 

She is in pain. Dominique jumps back onto her feet and to stop herself from shaking, she reminds herself of her many years of training. 

"Regina, I'm going to grab my supplies from the bathroom and then get started on fixing you up." Dominique grimaces when she brushes her hands down her legs, only to feel her hands and clothes soaked with dark globs of blood. "It's going to be alright."

She is already marching up the stairs before she has finished speaking. Dominique is running, sprinting, skipping two steps at the time in an effort to make it to her bathroom in record speed.

Inside the white-tiled room, she forgoes finding the lightswitch in the otherwise pitch-black house. 

She falls to her knees to rummage through her medical cabinet, finding her special emergency kit in the back where others wouldn't normally be looking. Her equipment is not for anyone to use, the only reason why she has access to it is because of her profession. 

With the heavy box under her arm, Dominique rushes back down the stairs but makes a b-line for the kitchen to turn the boiler on and wet a kitchen rag with warm water. 

When the boiler is turned on, the heating system in the house whirls on too.

Regina would need the warmth to heal.

Alongside her supplies and with sweat beating down her temples, Dominique is back by Regina's side. 

"I am here now." She tells the unconscious, shallowly breathing girl. "I am here, it's okay now."

She speaks in the same hurried voice in which she works. In the hospital, she is known for her speed and efficiency, which is why she usually finds herself dealing with emergencies on the daily basis where she is well equipped to handle the pressure.

It feels like every day at her job has been preparation that led up to this very moment. 

Dominique unpacks her kit and first finds the scissors sharp enough to cut through denim and leather. She uses it to peel the remainder of Regina's clothes from her unmoving body.

It gives her a chance to look more closely at the stab wounds in her chest that were not visible before. 

Removing her clothes will also help to warm her up faster, without the cold fabric clinging to her skin. 

"There, it's fine, it's just me." Reginas voice hitches when Dominique's scissors glide effortlessly through the scraps of her trousers, leaving her only in her underwear. "You're okay, it's just me."

She would have put her hand on Regina's cheek in reassurance, but there is no time.

At first glance, it is obvious the attacker had focused on Regina's upper body when assaulting her with the knife. Dominique runs her fingers down around the areas where she was stabbed and where blood is still trickling out, though less rapid now that she is on her back and calm in sleep. 

The wounds are bad, obviously messy and desperate. Some deeper than others. Dominique can tell that one has punctured Reginas small bowel, which she miraculously has kept inside herself by keeping pressure on it. The other wounds seem to have missed any vital organs. Signalling that the stabbing was not meant to kill her. Any person knows that the lower abdomen is not the place where the most vital organs are stored. It was an act of torture, Dominique realizes. A way to prolong her pain and inevitable death. 

Bad are the cuts in Regina's hands, where she had fought back. 

Dominique carefully turns Reginas swollen and bruised wrist around the examine the state of her hand. How she missed them at first is astounding, but she had thought the blood sticking to them came from her stomach wounds. 

The knife had punctured through Regina's palm several times. Dominique's stomach turns. It won't be likely that Regina will ever use her hands as before, with the nerves damaged so severely. At least blood supply to the fingers has not been stopped, which means amputation won't be necessary. 

Underneath her broken fingernails, Dominique finds the disgusting scraps of skin and dirt embedded far beneath the nails. 

Regina had fought for her life, bravely, had anticipated that she was going to die. Otherwise she would not have used her hands as shields and clawed at the man. 

Carefully, Dominique lays Regina's hand back on the couch with the palm up. Dominique gets up to cover Regina’s feet to her middle with a thick woollen blanket, to keep her warm. Then Dominique begins preparing the rubbing alcohol and stitching needle. 

"It will hurt a little." Dominique narrates while disinfecting her own hands before she can prepare the needle and thread. "I will stitch up the worst and use bandages for the less pressing matters. Tomorrow we need to bring you to a proper doctor, for scans and internal checks. I am afraid your small bowel will need surgery, as for your hands, I don't know how much can be done about that. I'm sorry. I will try my best, but they might be too damaged to safe, even by a doctor."

The warm rag she had picked up from the kitchen is placed delicately over Regina's forehead. Upon the first brush of skin, Dominique is pleasantly surprised to find Regina warming up.

"I think getting you out of those wet clothes was a good idea. You'll be warm soon enough." Dominique dabbles the gauze pad with the rubbing alcohol, she bites her lip before she goes for it. She takes one final look at Regina, and decides despite her unconsciousness, to warn her. "It will sting, but it's necessary." 

At the first touch of stinging alcohol to flesh, Regina chokes on air. 

Dominique, despite having her heart beat so loud her eardrums might explode from the inside, does not allow herself to be distracted from properly making sure Regina is not going to die from an infection. 

"There, there." She mutters. She goes one wound at the time, her stomach wounds, her hands, disinfecting it, and then sewing the gash shut with her stitch. "You're fine, I promise, it hurts a lot less than treating this alongside an infection."

The stitching is a long and painful process.

## La Meije; In The Beyrand Family Cabin  
November 1, 1973  
00:14 a.m.  


Dominique is halfway through the deepest gash, the one that had injured Regina's small bowel, when the girl wakes up abruptly grasping blindly for Dominique's hand. 

"Oh fuck, _fuck_." She attempts sitting up, but any movement of her abdomen muscles sends a blood-curdling cry past her injured windpipe. She ends up choking on the words and falling back on the couch with her eyes squeezed shut and her teeth clenched in uncontainable agony. "Dominique, it hurts. It hurts more than before."

Despite her voice barely passing as a whisper, Dominique forces herself to pick up on each word Regina struggles to form.

"It's the adrenaline that's worn off." She doesn't stop her stitching work, she smooths her spare hand down Regina's abdomen, something her mother did when her stomach was hurting as a child. Miraculously, Regina's chest expands on a deep exhale, before she relaxes her lower half. 

Dominique works the needle and the thread, lacking the precision she was known for in the hospital, but it is unheard of for her to be solely responsible for one patient. 

There is a lot more to be done for Regina once the stitching is over. 

Besides the obvious, dressing her remaining wounds after cleaning them, Dominique will have to perform an at-home blood transfusion, something she technically is not legally allowed to do. But the lack of colour in Regina's face reminds her that there is not a matter of choice here. If death or alive are not considered as choices.

Not for Dominique.

"Are you still with me?"

"Don't you have some painkillers?" Regina answers immediately and it sounds like she is struggling again. Dominique spares her one quick glance, just long enough to catch the fat tears running down her cheeks silently. "Anything? Some vodka?"

Dominique smirks, despite herself. And bites the inside of her cheek. "You watched too many American movies." 

"That is a no?" Regina asks again, but her voice is lighter this time. Kinder and more at peace despite the pain. 

Dominique finishes the stitch before she reaches into her medical kit again to find the Numorphan she keeps there for emergencies. She has them in pill form and has to cradle the back of Regina's head for her to sip from a water bottle and swallow the opioid down. 

Despite the help, she struggles to swallow.

It is obvious the pain frustrates her. Once the pill is down she squeezes her eyes shut tight. 

"It is because your throat is swollen." Dominique explains without having been asked. "You were strangled, so we ought to get you checked out at the hospital tomorrow."

"Hm."

The hum sounds neither confirmative nor dismissive. 

Dominique sighs through her nose, before tenderly lowering Regina's head back onto the couch to go back to her stitching work, luckily none of those wounds is bleeding as severely. 

"You said you were strangled."

Regina purses her lips, One of her hands (of the arm that doesn’t appear broken) is resting over her eyes now, palm turned upwards. The marks on her neck tells a clear story, but Dominique wants to make a point. 

"He grabbed my neck and squeezed until I blacked out. That's when he left me in the river where I woke up." She repeats quietly. 

Dominique is threading the last of the pressing wounds shut. The others can be dealt with bandages and plasters, which will take significantly less time and cause less pain. 

"He strangled you and you passed out for an unknown period?" Regina nods. "That's very serious. It could have caused a brain injury, or blood clots. The hospital can help identify these problems. I cannot, but I _can_ tell you many people die days or even weeks after their strangulation because of those invisible consequences." The soft skin beneath her fingertips shapes together easily, sewn into one perfectly stitched line, although not as even as some would have it, it will safe her although leave a scar. She spares Regina a short smile when the thread is secured. It feels unnatural to force the muscles in her cheeks to flex in order to fake the smile. "You made it through a vicious attack, one that you were not meant to survive. Don't let it be a blood clot that kills you now. And all my hard work could hardly have been for nothing."

Regina's eyes close then, her teeth catch the light above them in the first real smile spans her swollen face. 

"You make a compelling argument."

Dominique forces her eyes down just before the heat rises to her cheeks. Regina is charming and tugs on every string around Dominique's heart. 

There is no time for such thoughts now and Dominique pushes her adoration to the corner of her brain to get her work done properly. "It is what I'm known for..." She quirks up an eyebrow without looking again. "So you'll come to the hospital tomorrow?"

"With you?"

Snorting, Dominique shakes her head pensively. "If you think I'm letting you out of my sight after this, you're mad."

Regina exhales audibly, a sound of relief and pain both mixed together in a single breath. Her abs flex underneath Dominique's hand that rests somewhere above her belly button. This time when she speaks the previous bravado has vanished once more and is replaced by a need for reaffirmation. Her voice is strained with pain once more. The severity of her injuries, the sheer terror of what had happened to this poor girl, still sends chills down Dominique's spine. 

"...Do you think I'll make it?"

Dominique pulls the pointy end of the needle through Regina's fine skin again, binding the flesh together with the thick wirey thread. 

Her blue bloodshot eyes search hers, until Dominique gives in long enough to spare her a firm look. 

Dominique stops altogether and gives her a long, serious look. 

There are tears in the girls' eyes. The painkiller needs to set in fast. 

"Regina, it is a miracle you made it here. You've gotten through the worst already, all you have to do now is hold on." Dominique reaches out with her free hand to grab a careful hold of Regina's delicate wrist and gives her a squeeze. They ignore that her hand is tainted red with Regina's blood. She lets her thumb brush over her pulse point several times, circling the soft patch of skin with the rough edge of her finger. "You just have to hold on now."

Regina grits her teeth and clenches her eyes shut. Dominique half expects her to yank her hand away, but perhaps she lacks the energy or strength. 

"Everything hurts."

"I know."

" _No_ ," Regina blinks rapidly, looking straight at Dominique while she fights bitterly against the wave of tears, but they keep on falling. "I'm in pain, I've never hurt so much. Nothing has ever hurt so much."

Her voice gives out by the end of her sentence. She opens her mouth again to say something else, but she ends up gaping, like a fish upon the water. She swallows thickly and reaches for her throat, touching it with the back of her hand the tender bruises that are already turning purple beneath the surface. 

"Shh," Dominique has yet to stop stroking Regina's wrist. The soothing touch helps the girl close her eyes in a more solemn self-determined manner. "You're right, I don't know how much it's hurting now." She pauses, giving herself a beat to think about the right thing to say. "The medication will set in soon, and tomorrow in the hospital, they have even stronger stuff."

"Yeah?" Regina croaks out.

Dominique nods, "Yes, we will leave first thing in the morning. Get you some of the worlds best drugs, I promise you I won’t leave you alone with anyone. I’ll come with you."

"Please."

Eventually, Dominique has to drop Regina's hand again, to finish her thread. They do so in silence, the most prominent sound in the room is Regina struggling to breathe, a constant rhythmic wheeze that crackles up from Regina's tightened chest.

## La Meije; In The Beyrand Family Cabin  
November 1, 1973  
01:18 a.m.  


By the time Dominique is bandaging the less severe wounds, Regina's eyes have hooded down half-mast and her face has gone slack. 

Her stomach no longer retracts at every touch and her skin is warmer underneath Dominique's hands. 

"That should be the painkillers." Dominique comments wryly. 

Alleviation takes the weight of dread off Dominique's tight chest when she stops Regina's bleeding and the girl is still alive. 

She had doubt, really, when she saw Regina stumbling into the road, she was certain that there was maybe another minute or two left in the poor, skinny girl. But Regina had proven her wrong and Dominique is glad for it. 

There is so much relief that her own adrenaline makes another surging appearance. Dominique knows she is worn beneath the raging hormones. Her skin is tight around her skeleton and her muscles are jerking in movements only natural to them by instinct. 

The adrenaline is the reason why Dominique is smiling like a loon, while starting the blood transfusion. 

She forces herself to munch on a cookie, even though the thought of food makes her want to vomit. She is kneeled down beside the couch, watching over a dozing and wheezing Regina, whose mind and body are at tug of war with each other. The mind addled with drugs begging to shut down, while the body jerks with surges of unbearable pain. 

Dominique brushes Regina's hair behind the delicate shell of her ear while she waits with one arm resting on a cushion for the bag of blood to fill. 

"Are you sleeping?" Dominique asks in a tone quiet enough that it would not rouse Regina if she was sleeping.

But instantly two delicate blue eyes flutter open just far enough for Regina to peer up at Dominique. 

"This does not feel real." She speaks in a barely audible broken voice. Dominique silently wonders what she sounded like prior to her attack. "Like a dream."

"I will give you my blood soon, that will help balance you out a little."

She lets her finger brush over Regina's temple, one of the few places that have not been injured. Her eye is nearly swollen shut only a couple of centimetres down. Her lips are raw bitten, broken, bruised and busted. Her hair is an uncombed, untamed mess, something Dominique does not want to touch when Regina's scalp is still recovering from her being dragged out of the car by her hair. The roots have pulled, it hurts still, like every part of her. 

Regina is visibly in excruciating pain, although the painkillers seem to make her forget to feel it. 

Dominique hopes it will last her through the night. She is unsure of how to medicate her when the extend of her injuries, including a potential brain injury, are unknown.

It's chilling, truly. Unreal that Regina is laying there after such a vicious attack. 

It is even more so when Dominique thinks about how she had not intended to take that road during the night, which would have meant that she would not have been there to pick Regina up. She would have been at the mercy of someone without any medical knowledge, perhaps. Or worse, her attacker could have found her again and finished the job. 

Those thoughts are revolting. Dominique feels as every crumb of the cookie sits heavy in her otherwise empty stomach. 

To think of Regina going through something so vicious, a human being dragged, assaulted, stabbed and strangled, left to die in a river a far few steps from the road, while forever away from civilization, is to Dominique the worst possible violation on a girl. It feels like a violation in itself to make Regina experience those things again, even if only in Dominique’s own thoughts. Even the Regina in her mind did not deserve to relive her agony over and over again. 

"The pain won't last." Dominique continues to reassure. "I have seen a lot during my years as a nurse, but you are the strongest woman I have ever met."

"I'm not dying, am I?" Regina rasps out, her voice shudders.

Dominique is not sure whether she is joking or being absolutely serious, so she brushes her thumb over the corner of Regina's good eye, where there the tear trail runs down the plum tilt of her cheek and disappears into her hair. 

"No, no of course not." Dominique informs firmly. "I was admiring you." 

Regina bites her lip in thought as she takes in Dominique. Dominique almost tells her off for damaging the healing skin further, but instead, she uses her thumb to draw Regina's lip from between her front teeth without saying a word. 

The gesture quirks up the corner of Regina's mouth, likely involuntarily. 

"Have I thanked you at all?" Regina suddenly asks in a dreamy, detached voice that fits the hazy look in her eyes. 

Dominique shrugs with the one-shoulder that is not attached to the arm that is giving blood. 

"There is no need to."

"Thank you." There are the tears again, Regina shuts her eyes and when she reopens them they are moist, glistening in the reflective lamp on the ceiling above them, but she is not crying. "Thank you, for trying to safe me."

Brushing her fringe to the side of her face, Dominique closes her eyes and bows her head forward to press her lips briefly against the smooth area between Regina's eyebrows. 

Dominique allows the kiss to linger for a few seconds. 

She eventually is forced to pull away. When she does she sees that Regina's eyes have shut too. 

Something about Regina is simply enchanting. It is hard to look away from her, even when she is not looking back. Dominique's lips tingle now, even long after they have stopped touching. 

She opens her mouth to speak, but then, just before a noise can leave her mouth, she realizes suddenly from the truly steady rise and fall of Regina's chest, that the girl had managed to fall asleep. Now, truly at peace.

## La Meije; In The Beyrand Family Cabin  
November 1, 1973  
01:57 a.m.  


It is not ideal, to give someone a blood transfusion without them noticing, but Dominique has survived more challenging tasks today. 

She gives Regina the blood directly from the bag, through the plastic tube, into her blue nearly invisible vein. 

The transfusion is a quick, nearly painless affair for the drugged up girl. 

Dominique takes the moment to finally take off her shoes and coat and leave them in the hallway. She also locks the front and back door, kicking herself for not doing so earlier. She checks the house then, with a knife clutched in her hand and her heart beating high in her chest, nearly in her throat. 

She finds nobody inside after going through every room and closet twice. Regina and herself are truly alone in the cabin, yet Dominique refuses to grab her suitcase that is still in the back of her car. The thought of going outside makes her sick to her stomach. 

Before she goes to remove the transfusion tube from Regina's arm, Dominique makes a mental note tomorrow to call the local sheriff first, before anything else. They don't open until business hours, so Dominique has to sit tight before that. It gives her an uneasy, chilly feeling. Knowing a killer is on the loose right as she lays herself down on the carpet next to the couch, on the floor. There she curls up in a ball with a pillow underneath a fleece blanket. She refuses to stray from Regina's side during the night and it will not be possible to move the girl up the stairs without waking her.

She is peaceful now, it seems. 

Dominique watches her for a long, quiet moment, before she can allow her own eyes to rest. 

She looks at Regina, and is pleasantly surprised to see a healthy flush return to her white face. Her eyes are shut gently, not clenched or forced closed in a squeeze. Her mind is at peace, Dominique concludes finally when Regina's face stays lacks with undisturbed sleep. 

Her hand lays unoccupied, relaxed and bandaged palm up next to her head on the pillow. 

Dominique without thinking puts her hand on top of hers while mindful with the injury. She curls her fingers around Regina's and feels utter reassurance when her palm is warm against hers. 

They'll have to wake up first thing in the morning and for them both, but for now, for tonight, Dominique can relish in the notion that she had brought Regina home, patched her up and helped her through the night long enough for her to sleep in peace. Something she had not dared to think when finding her sprawled on the highway. 

Dominique is unsure for whom she is holding on so tight to Regina's hand, even when she lowers herself down into her makeshift bed, she takes Regina's hand with her so her arm dangles off the couch. 

All she knows that is the only way she can close her eyes and doze off, is by every few seconds assuring that Regina is still with her.

## La Meije; In The Beyrand Family Cabin  
November 1, 1973  
07:16 a.m.  


She is gone when Dominique wakes up.

"Regina?" Dominique pushes herself to her knees and lays her palms flat on the couch, as if Regina had been swallowed by the pillows. "Regina?!"

Every joint in her wrecked body pops when Dominique rushes upright to look around the house, being sensible, she checks the toilet first, fearing Regina had tried to use it by herself only to pass out or hit her head. When the girl is not there, Dominique checks the kitchen, the bathroom, her bedroom, each guest room, followed by the wine cellar. 

"Regina?! _Regina_?!"

Dominique runs back down the stairs, her heart is pounding, she runs for the front door, only to find it still locked from the inside. 

She stops dead in tracks in the middle of the hallway. Her voice has gone hoarse from all the yelling and the sudden stunned silence gives her time to swallow thickly around the dry walls of her throat. 

Panic rises up to Dominique's chest. Blood drains from her face. 

Regina really is in no state to travel and with no clothing nor shoes, no wallet or money. Dominique checks her coat and finds none of her money was taken, the clothes in her closet upstairs are untouched and her car is exactly where she had parked it yesterday, covered in a light layer of snow. 

She fears two things.

1\. Regina has climbed out of a window to get outside, barely clothed or equipped to travel. Dominique suspects because she changed her mind about going to the hospital. 

2\. Regina is still somewhere around the house, but has passed out or worse. 

Every single nerve in Dominque's body is prickling. Her skin itches uncomfortably. She wants to tear every plank of this cabin down to the foundation to find where Regina is, because she knows that unless someone helped her leave, she is not far. She can't be. 

But Dominique had already checked every corner of the house. She had opened every door, checked each closet, bathrooms and underneath and behind furniture. To safe Regina's life, Dominique has to admit her defeat.

Next to the phone, her family keeps the thick recently re-released phone book. 

Dominique props herself up against the wall with the phone wedged between her shoulder and ear, while she flips through the pages trying to find the local sheriffs number. 

There is only one station that covers the whole area, due to the small population. 

Most of the crime committed is occasional drunkards or tourists misbehaving in the area. 

Dominique dials the number, rotating it with both haste and care, to prevent having to start over again. After all the numbers are dialled, she only has to wait one moment before the phone is picked up by a kind receptionist with a warm voice, who reassures Dominque she will get the sheriff on the line as fast as possible. 

"Good morning, to whom am I speaking?"

"This is Dominique from the Beyrand family, I live up the mountain in the east. I have to report a missing person."

There is a pause, and then a sigh. 

The sheriff is shifting around, settling down somewhere, before Dominique hears the familiar scratching of pen on paper. "What can I do for you Ms Beyrand?"

"I am ashamed to report this to you so late, but last night, while I was driving down the Pré Baron I picked up a hitchhiker." 

Dominique swallows thickly and at the mention of Regina the hairs at the back of her neck stand up. She casts a glance over her shoulder, but sees nobody outside the kitchen window, just her car and the blanket of snow. 

"She had been hitchhiking from Annecy. When I found her she had been injured severely by the man who had driven her so far. He had left her body in the Isère."

"Jesus." 

"She woke up and managed to walk to the road, where I picked her up."

"Where are you two now?"

Her stupidity rises higher in her chest. She should have driven Regina to a local clinic and demand a doctor be called in, instead of bringing her to her cabin. Regina could not have resisted much, not physically. Dominique should not have presented it as a matter of choice. She knew Regina was dying. 

"She refused to go to a hospital. She was so scared— he had really, _really_ hurt her, you see? So I brought her to my own home. I-I am a nurse." 

The sheriff inhales sharply. Dominique can feel the disappointment flow through the landline. 

"Where is she now?"

Dominique rubs at her eyes with the back of her palm. She breathes, reminding herself that she did nothing illegal and she won't be in trouble. This is to help Regina and Regina alone. With that in mind, she disregards her own discomfort with ease. "I patched her up and she made it through the night." The officer sighs in relief. "—But when I woke up this morning she was nowhere to be found. I looked everywhere, she is not here anymore."

"Did she steal any money? A bike? Car?"

"No." Dominique shakes her head. "She took nothing. She didn't even have clothes, nor shoes."

The man is cursing under his breath, slightly away from the phone. Dominique hears every word anyway with how she holds her breath.

"She can't have made it far, I looked around the house, but she is not here anymore. But she needs medical attention now. She can't be out alone."

"Don't worry Mme, we will let the local radio station know and I will send some men down to parole the area."

That is good, at least. Dominique can breathe again. She exhales through her nose. Her nostrils flare out in the motion and her chest deflates. It is only a short moment of relief, because Regina is not found, not even a trace of her is found. 

"Could you give a description of her?"

"Yes, yes." Dominique hastily complies. "She has blond hair, shoulder-length. She is not tall. But most noticeably are her injuries now, she has been strangled with bare hands and a swollen eye, her hands, as well as many parts of her upper chest, have been bandaged." She closes her eyes and pictures Regina, back on the couch, with her eyes shut in peace after the pain had faded into the void of drugs. "She was... beautiful."

"Thank you, Mme. If she is out there I have no doubt we should find her."

"And the killer? He is out there too still."

The sheriff makes a humming noise from the back of his throat. Then he sighs, another noise that comes from deep inside his chest. 

"Had she said anything about him? What he looked like or where he picked her up?"

"He called himself Laurant, she said. He drove a Peugot 404, but I don't remember the color... No facial hair, dark eyes but light coloured shoulder-length hair, she said." Dominique shuts her eyes tight to imagine Regina the way she had sat in the passenger seat yesterday, her lips barely moving with how cold and drained of life she was. "She said— she said he was of an average height, but dragged ger around like she weighed nothing."

"I will send an alert out to the radio station closeby, tell the newspaper too. They will get the word out for girls to be careful, it's 1969 all over again." He pauses, then adds with more determination, "We will find the girl. None have made it out alive before. We will find this girl."

"Regina." The name adds weight to her chest, but she can't help it and says it again. "Her name is Regina Meddows Taylor."

"We will find her."

## Pré Baron; The Narrow Road to Lyon  
November 1, 1973  
08:11 p.m.  


Dominique debates finding another route on the map to Lyon. 

Every single nerve in her system is tense with alarm. She checks the rearview mirror every five seconds, sometimes more rapidly, when she thinks she sees movement from the corner of her eye in the blind spot behind her trunk. 

The police had been avidly searching the area, La Meije and nearby highways too. Locals had helped in the search for Regina in dark allies, piles of snow and under their porches. 

Nothing had led to any traces, which worries Dominique to her core, because on her own, Regina could not have gotten far.

She fears the worst. 

A dreadful, all-consuming terror overtakes the deepest parts of herself. She is consumed by guilt, knowing that her insistence on going to the hospital in the morning, was likely what had chased Regina out of the cabin before Dominique could force her to see other people. She should have assured Regina that the doctors would treat her appropriately. She should have said that they could demand only for female doctors and nurses to examine her. She could have nursed Regina to health herself. 

Dominique clenches onto the steering wheel and adds more weight on the gas paddle. 

In the morning she has a shift in her hospital in Lyon. While every single fibre of her being tells her to stay in La Mejie in the family cabin, in case Regina finds her way back, Dominique knows deep down, that Regina won't be coming back. 

She drives fast.

She is too far from the city to pick up a radio station. Her cassettes are stored in the glove compartment, but Dominique can't be bothered to distract herself more when she is already focusing with equal intensity on the road and if a murderer is following her into the night. Perhaps with Regina's motionless body in the back of his trunk.

Dominique drives faster, past the speed limit and harder.

However much she feels like this is yet another betrayal to the girl she met last night, this place gives her the chills. She knows that she needs to get out as soon as possible. 

In the distance, she imagines the promising city lights of Lyon. They are still far away, too far away, but without any headlights along the highway, it is beside her own car, the only source of light in the area. It attracts to her like a mot. Dominique speeds up, if only to stop staring at the bloody handprint Regina had left on her window and Dominique had not had the heart to clean it up, even after the police had taken pictures of it. 

She drives in the silent humming of her motor, driving as fast as she can still safely control the steering wheel beneath her numbing fingers. 

Every part of her is filled with dread, overcome with sorrow. She looks over her shoulder again, where she swore to have seen the shadow of another car. 

One glance tells her she was mistaken. Her heart is racing in her chest and every patch of skin is littered with goosebumps now. She can hardly breathe. The shadow of the car is imprinted in her mind and now she sees nothing but.

The image is so striking and distracting that Dominique almost doesn't see the figure on the road ahead of her.

"Fuck!"

Dominique takes her weight off the gas paddle to hit the brake as hard as she can.

The car nearly, almost, crashes into the person staggering like a walking corpse into the open road.

In that split second terrifyingly familiar blue, red-rimmed eyes catch the glow of the headlights of the car

The car comes to a shrieking stop in front of Regina's bare feet. 

Every single word in her vocabulary fails Dominique. She gapes in absolute dumbfounded horror at the state of the girl.

She is in the same ruined clothes as the night before, the fabric only clinging onto her where the blood has dried it to her skin. Her arm, which Dominique had treated last night, is cradled to her heaving, blood covered chest. While it has not rained or snowed during the day, Regina is drenched in water and her body is trembling uncontrollably. 

She comes closer to the car, sobbing for help.

Dominique has stopped breathing altogether. Tears fill her eyes when Regina puts her hand on the glass, leaving a bloody imprint to cover the same one from last night. 

Dominique can recite the words before Regina has the chance of speaking them, but she is too horrified to do anything but listen through the glass as Regina gathers the strength to speak, as her voice is hoarse and weakened by the gripping aftermath of her strangulation. 

"H-he tried to kill me." 

Her whole body trembles when she speaks, which takes an enormous effort. A perfect imitation of the night before, with the same true, deeply felt desperation in her tear rimmed eyes. 

"He tried to kill me." 

Dominique stares blankly back at her. Watching Regina stand there suffering from injuries no human body could have ever sustained. Regina's eyes bore back into hers, but for the first time, Dominque notices how they are distant, as if in a deep trance. Detached from reality in a never-ending loop of a cry for help against the ultimate injustice done to her. 

While her hand on the window seems as real as the touch of her skin last night, Dominique is suddenly overcome with an immense wave of grief, realizing now, that Regina had not survived her attack at all.

**Author's Note:**

> 👀 I do take questions at this time


End file.
